


When the Ocean Rushes up to Meet You

by HarkerX



Series: The Yellow Notebook [7]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alpha Anthony Dimmond, Alpha Hannibal Lecter, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bottom Anthony dimmond, Daddy Kink, Hannibal is Hannibal, Jack (mentioned) - Freeform, Knotting, Knotting Dildos, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Not Canon Compliant, Omega Will Graham, Oral Sex, Top Hannibal Lecter, Top Will Graham, Will is Will, no murder on the menu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 03:58:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkerX/pseuds/HarkerX
Summary: “I’m armed,” he warns. Waits, waits out breath, the inhale and exhale. He exists in the space between breaths, in between the beats of his heart. Hannibal showed him those spaces, how to stop inside of them.Spinning on his heel, Will lifts his sidearm, his finger too close to the trigger. Pot lights, their UFO beams, light up the travertine counters. Once, Will called them stone. Hannibal corrected him.(or the one in which scarf!Dad shows up)(note: the Yellow Notebook is not canon compliant but assumes you have seen through S3 as characters show up sometimes)





	When the Ocean Rushes up to Meet You

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my lovelies @deeker @fannibaltoast @electrarhodes for history lessons, support and love!
> 
> (typos, grammar and other nonsense is entirely on me. Thank you so much for reading, I had no idea this series would be this long, but I appreciate every kudo and comment! <3)

Will may have had two drinks too many with dinner, but he makes it to the front door in one piece. The lock knows the key. Once he was a stranger in Hannibal’s home, but now the walls welcome him, know the press of his hand, his cheek. The dining room, in all of its greenery, reaches for him when he passes. The floor welcomes the feel of his breath and his knees know the places where the boards meet in the hall.

Katz waits until he stumbles into the foyer before she drives off in a beep-beep honk.

There’s that moment, that moment when the building, the house, the room should be empty, but the whole of it wavers as if somewhere, in the shadows and dark corners, someone’s flicked a switch. Except it’s Thursday, and Thursday is opera and the house should be empty but the air is too sharp and becomes a knife, pressing.

So Will’s careful when he steps through the foyer, careful when he kicks off his shoes and tiptoes down the dark hall. Careful when he pulls his gun from the holster. Careful when he considers what he might do next, there’s that easy pull of the hammer, the immediate need he has to protect. Keep safe.

There is this: literature assumes when an Alpha/Omega is pair bonded, the protective instinct of the Alpha goes into overdrive.

Literature underestimates the Omega.

Someone left a light on. It would not have been Hannibal.

“I’m armed,” he warns. Waits, waits out breath, the inhale and exhale. He exists in the space between breaths, in between the beats of his heart. Hannibal showed him those spaces, how to stop inside of them.

Spinning on his heel, Will lifts his sidearm, his finger too close to the trigger. Pot lights, their UFO beams, light up the travertine counters. Once, Will called them stone. Hannibal corrected him.

A kitchen towel lies discarded on the floor. A knife rests not where it belongs.

He heads for the stairs to the second floor, takes each step slowly. Carefully. Listens, both ears open for whatever’s ahead and whatever might just creep up behind. Creak. _Door_.  Knows it’s the bathroom, another entry on his honey-do list, fix the bathroom door, the Bentley needs an oil change,

Go into heat.

He crosses one foot in front of the other as he turns the corner, knocks into something solid, not solid enough because wall doesn’t bend like that.

“Graham!”

Will jumps back, hits the opposite wall shoulder first, head second, a staggered heartbeat that’s too fast for the gun in his hand. Anthony jumps three inches in the air, his hands over his head and then he’s halfway to dropping, halfway to his knees.  

A moment. A second. Past, this oncoming possible future. The whole of it flashes, cuts through the black of his vision.

_Time stops and the room collapses, a darkness, a black hole and there’s gunsmoke, powder and Will..._

_Time jumps forward. Two seconds, three. Five and then seven. The air is iron._

_Someone is screaming. Will stumbles backward. Anthony. Anthony is all flailing limbs and a moan, a tumbling thud of limbs and terror._

_Time reverses._

_Tick-tock. Heartbeat. The impossible thudding in his chest._

“WILL!”

Everything slips into focus.

Will slides his finger back. Checks the safety. Lowers the gun. Draws his shaking hands close to his body, holds onto himself to keep from falling, from tumbling down and over.

“The fuck are you?” Why is Anthony standing in his hallway when he’s supposed to be in Florence and the air…

has a warmth.

_Oh._

“Hannibal!” Called out. Called out with the turn of his head and there’s still the matter of the gun, of its comfort, still a weapon even though it’s just become an object in his hand.

The bedroom door opens and Hannibal, in his best pair of pyjama pants and hair that can only be described as _tousled_ , leans into the doorframe. “Are you all right?”

Anthony clears his throat. Interruption. Stepping into this moment, this second. This space. Will rolls his shoulders.

“Answer me,” Hannibal says, without so much of a glance at the other man, and lifts his hand. Palm out, flat, facing the floor and Will.

Will immediately slides down the wall. Settles to the floor. The gun he pushes away, just beyond his fingertips.

Anthony steps away from his side of the hallway.

“You left the light on, there’s a kitchen towel on the floor and the knife…” the words rush out. He lifts his head and looks at Hannibal. “You’re supposed to be at the Opera. I thought-” his Omega thought, the part that loves Hannibal thought, the parts of him that would protect what they have with bullets and blood, thought-  “you were in danger.”

Anthony goes for the gun, empties it of bullets and hands it to Hannibal.

“Now is a good time,” Hannibal says.

“To tidy up,” Anthony replies in a nod and with a glance at Will, heads back downstairs.

“Come,” Hannibal motions with his hand and Will.

Will pushes himself to standing and follows Hannibal into their bedroom.

#

“Are you all right?”

All right. His heart is a heavy lead thud in his chest and the back of his neck is damp with sweat. The familiar prickling in his palms- the strange energy that comes just before he goes into heat- is all pins and he rubs his hands on his thighs. Fear tastes sour, sulphur and rot.

“You don’t leave kitchen towels on the floor.”

Hannibal nods. “I will be more careful in the future.”

Will makes a noise in his throat. “I interrupted something.” As if that’s the biggest problem right now, in this moment. He closes his eyes and Anthony, sees a hole where his heart should be. Will wipes a hand over his mouth, presses the heels of his hand to his eyes.

“Why were you armed?”

“Work,” Will says. “I would have—” in a start/stop. “I would have put it in the safe but the lights and the dish towel.”

“Is my fault,” Hannibal says. “I was distracted.”

Distracted. A warmth in his belly, like jealousy but not, like want, but not. Usually. Often. More times than not if Anthony is in their bed, Will is close. Closer. Wrapped up in Hannibal’s arms, a mess of limbs that don’t smell only like his Alpha, because Anthony…

…because Anthony is Alpha, too, and it’s not unusual for Alphas to be sexually compatible, it removes all the complex Omega attachments, possible attachments, desires to bond and mate and breed and in Hannibal’s case.

In Hannibal’s case.

Turns out Hannibal has his own Black Notebook. Turns out Anthony doesn’t need an Omega, or heat or rut to knot, and so sometimes, sometimes they are as this, his Alpha and this other man and Will can only be outside of it. Sometimes he thinks about it, Hannibal on his knees, presenting and bred. Will’s cock stirs at the latent ghost-memory of being knotted, the desire to be filled and it’s a state he’s never seen his Alpha in and won’t. Can’t. It’s not a secret, but it’s not a thing they talk about.

“Will.” His name as if it’s been repeated, as if Hannibal’s throat is raw from it. “Look at me.”

Will does. Lifts his chin and Hannibal motions to the bed.

“Sit.”

Will does.

Sits on the edge of the bed and somehow feels like he’s done something wrong when all he wanted was to keep Hannibal safe. “I’m sorry—”

Then there’s this, the swift of Hannibal crossing the room. Arms around Will to draw him in and close and the wild abandon of Hannibal’s cologne; bergamot and something like sunset, copper and the burning of so many trees.

“You would have pulled that trigger for me.”

Will nods. Swallows. Shifts and buries his face in the soft of Hannibal’s chest, the brush of hair and there’s the comfort of Hannibal’s hand. It’s not softness, not the way his fingers flex and fist and tug, not in the way Will makes a low, distressed sound as he presses his mouth to Hannibal’s skin, tasting sweat, Anthony, the man who smells like a garden halfway to dying. The poetry of decay. Of roses and how their petals fall.

“My perfect, beautiful Will.”

But as usual, he just feels just a little bit broken. Not weak, not incapable, because he knows better, just not entirely _not_ fucked up. But he nods in Hannibal’s arms and buries himself in the warmth of his Alpha and takes a deep, steadying breath.

Hannibal stirs, steps back. Brushes Will’s hair from his forehead. “The timing is not optimum, however Jack called at intermission and I’m needed at the hospital.”

“You bailed on the opera for Jack?” The bedroom reeks of sex and Hannibal knows it. “For a patient?” What patient needed a therapist in the middle of the night? Maybe it wasn’t the patient that needed Hannibal.

Probably just Jack.

“Their transport arrives around three a.m., Jack asked for my assistance. Ms. Katz spoke with Jack, I knew you were on your way home and I wanted to be here when you arrived.”

“Your assistance? Why not mine?”

“Because you’re—”

Will glances at his watch, second hand tick tock and it feels like forever. “What, a handful of hours from going into heat?”

“Because you are not a therapist. This is not a crime scene, Will, it’s the aftermath.  If I’m unable to be home in time for you, I’ve requested Anthony stay with you.”

“You asked Anthony to Omegasit?”

“I requested he stay because I don’t want you going into heat without an Alpha present.”

“Done it before.” In Hannibal’s spare room. In _their_ spare room.

“You were not my responsibility before.”

“So you being responsible is handing me over to another Alpha? Should I just crawl into his bed with my ass in the air for him?” He pauses, makes an entirely terrible decision. “I thought that was your job?”

It happens like breathing. Hannibal’s hand to the back of Will’s hair in a sudden demanding push. Will falls in a gasp, hands out, his palms sliding along the polished wood. He coughs, spits. “That all you got?”

Will knows exactly what Hannibal is capable of.

A foot to his calf. A knee to his thigh. A hand on the back of his neck. The impossible weight of his Alpha.

How many times, now, has Will been mounted?

Hannibal growls into his hair. “Tell me what you need.”

_Release or comfort._

_Release as comfort._

Will bucks up, slipping his hand between his belly and the floor, fingers to his button, his fly. The metallic run of the zipper and then, then he’s fisting his cock over his boxers, rubbing the heel of his hand into his thickening erection.

Hannibal leans over him, nudging Will’s head with his cheek until Will exposes his neck, the scar Hannibal left upon him. His gland pulses. Slick builds. When Hannibal’s teeth make their way into skin everything gets warm.

Wet.

Will pushes at his pants and Hannibal gives him just enough room to free his cock, to wrap his hand around his shaft and Hannibal

bites

down

gnaws on the memory of his own teeth as Will works himself under Hannibal’s weight. Milks the first drop of pre-come from his body and wets his fingers. Stroke, tug and squeeze, panting as he pushes into his own fist in an urgent rocking of hips and such desperate moans, and there’s Hannibal and Hannibal’s teeth and the bruises Hannibal loves to make, the tender pull of skin between such sharp incisors and Will…

“Daddy,” he whispers, “Daddy, make me come.”

Hannibal groans, tearing into the skin of Will’s neck until the flesh can’t help but open and salt and salt and crimson tears roll down the curve of Will’s neck, marking the floor.

It’s easy to rock forward, to bend enough under the weight of Hannibal, the weight of this latent pain, this comfort, and draw his tongue over the cold of the wooden floor, pull the salted iron into his mouth, a single drop of blood and another and then one more. His cock pulses, throbs in the crushing fist of his hand and Hannibal…

And Will. And Will. And Will gasps as he spills wet over the bedroom floor, a jerking sputter of fear and want.

For a moment there is only breath. Silence.

“There’s a good boy,” Hannibal finally whispers, pulling him up and back and close as he wipes at Will’s neck with the pad of his thumb. “Such a good, good boy for me.”

It’s easy to shift, to lean into his Alpha, to close his eyes even as Hannibal tucks a hand into Will’s pants’ pocket and removes his phone.

“What r’you?” a soft, hazy mumble.

“You need water,” Hannibal says, his thumb grazing the screen.

Then another bell rings out. Hannibal stirs, unravels. “That might be Jack.”

Will’s fingers curl, but he doesn’t reach for Hannibal, doesn’t grab hold of the man’s pant leg. Doesn’t ask him to stay. Maybe the older man senses it anyway, because he turns around and kisses Will’s hair.

“I’ll be right back.” And then he’s pulling a blanket down from the bed and wrapping it around Will’s shoulders.

#

Five minutes later there’s a knock on the doorframe. Anthony holding a tray, his grey t-shirt half-tucked, jeans too low on his hips, his hair an impossible mess. Comes in, comes close, bends at the knee, presenting his gift to Will who hasn’t moved from where Hannibal left him.  

“Water.”

Will shifts, leans forward, investigating the tray. There’s the crystal glass, a bandaid not big enough for the flesh Hannibal tore. Four pills.

Anthony names them all in turn. “Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Xanax-”

“Suppressants,” Will says.

“An option,” Anthony offers. “Not entirely unheard of when one’s Alpha will be unavailable during heat.”

“I don’t need your pharmacy, Anthony.”

“Are you sure?”

Is he? It’s not as if obliteration hasn’t appealed to him before. He glances down at his hand, the curve of his fingers. How he holds a gun. How the gun was pointed at Anthony. Anthony, bleeding from the chest and the blood coursing down the stairs in a ruby river.

Will squeezes his eyes shut. Shakes his head.

Anthony leans in, touching Will’s neck, the drying blood. He cups Will’s chin, lifting his gaze. Will shakes his head and pulls away even though he doesn’t want to.

“Hannibal asked me to help you through your heat. He’s not going to mind me touching you. I recall you enjoying my company, darling.”

More than enjoyed, with Anthony on his knees and Will’s fist in his hair. “I could have—”

“Killed me?”

Will nods. “Yes.”

“You didn’t.”

Didn’t. But he would have, in a heartbeat. An instant. A breath. A sigh. He would have, if it meant protecting Hannibal. “I thought someone was in the house.”

“Don’t assume you’re my first angry, jealous husband, Graham, nor my last. I’ve been chased from better places.”

His smile is too broad, too kind and Will lets out a low, uneasy laugh of his own and tries to hide his shaking hands. Usually Hannibal’s presence steadies him, grounds him. But the phone rang, and Will’s damp from come and slick, his cock throbbing.

Anthony sits, cross legged. Holds out the water.

“Maybe I do need the Xanax.”

“We could get horribly inebriated and take a ridiculous amount of pharmaceuticals.” Anthony taps the bottom of the glass. “I’m not opposed to a little hedonism.”

Will takes a sip. Another. There is still the matter of his heat. Still the matter of Hannibal’s arrangement, Anthony as surrogate. Will never considers going through heat as hedonistic, more unavoidable. Sometimes he embraces it. It got better, this idea of mating, of Alpha and Omega, when he met Hannibal. “I think Hannibal would prefer something old-fashioned. Alpha, Omega.  You fuck me.” Knot him. Hannibal didn’t say, but heat. The idea of Anthony inside him, knotting him, makes his insides flip over in unwelcome ways.

Anthony laughs. “Ah, I believe that was off the table.”

Off the table? “An Alpha in a room with an Omega in heat and that’s off the table?”

There’s the way Anthony smiles.

“What?”

“Hannibal has no intention of upsetting either your, or our dynamic, and frankly, as much as I do appreciate it a little rough, I’d like to live to see Monday.”

Will scratches his cheek. Drinks down more of the water. Maybe Anthony thinks he’s confused, or maybe Anthony just doesn’t like the quiet and Anthony is not one to sit in silence.

“You and H made a deal, standard A/O relationship. I get it. I’d kneel for him to, if he asked, but that doesn’t mean you and I are bound by any of that nonsense. Rules are boring, Graham.” He leans forward, pushing Will’s hair from his face. “We decide what each of us wants, not some stuffy piece of literature.”

Will leans into Anthony’s touch. That’s biology. Omega seeking comfort from Alpha. Technically, in the matter of orgasm, he’s sated, but his oncoming change, the heat, the way it knocks on the door asking Will to open, to welcome, is there and despite their history, despite how Anthony has come into their bed and despite how Will has come in Anthony, the Omega only sees Alpha, and he turns his head and kisses Anthony’s wrist and his body reacts, leaking slick.

“You smell beautiful,” Anthony smiles. “Salt and Hannibal. Blood. The way your body calls. A whisper only for me, little Omega.”

Part of him, the warm and soft cub inside his body wants to bend forward and crawl closer, curl up in Anthony’s lap, to be enveloped by the smell of Anthony, to die in his garden, warm and wet and taken. Bleeding, if that’s the road this takes but instead, instead there’s Will, prickly and pushy. “He’s using you, you know that?” Using Anthony, who’s too much like Will, too much like a mirror, with his curls and sleight build. “Surrogate stand in. If you’re fucking him, don’t you think he sees me instead?”

Anthony laughs and leans back, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Yes, it’s quite terrible, isn’t it? This idea that someone wishes to use and another wishes to be used. One top, one bottom.” He twists his hands, holding his palms together then apart, over and under each other. “Isn’t it horrid. I fuck Hannibal and he envisions you, you fuck me and wish your cock was buried deep inside him, but you also get the view. You become him and in fucking me, see yourself under his weight, beneath him. And maybe, maybe if I weren’t kinky as fuck, that might bother me. But I’m not some insecure child. I walk through this house by choice and I crawl into that bed by choice and even if your fussy, prickly, pain in the ass Alpha has a type, I’m not ashamed of my sexuality, so do not try to belittle or diminish me to protect yourself, because it’s a bad look on you, boy.”

“Are you done?” Will mumbles, trying to shift, to get his pants done back up because under this blanket, he’s still awfully disheveled.

“Do you want me to be?”

An idiot question, but maybe not, not if sometimes Will also gets off of demands, on belittlement, on cowering and then crawling. It’s all there in his handwriting, scrawled in the Black Notebook.

Hannibal once threatened to let Anthony read it. Now he has to wonder if Anthony did.

“Not necessarily.”

Anthony laughs. “Oh, you are a treasure.” Then he’s all hands, pulling Will close and into his arms, and Will. Will settles there. And by some miracle they are quiet, until a shadow falls over the hardwood.

“Will.”

Hannibal.

“Come with me.”

#

Come with me sends Will to the shower. Perfunctory. Quick. When he steps out, there’s a note on the counter.

_Study._

_-H_

Hannibal’s been leaving him notes since the day Will first showed up on Hannibal’s doorstep, off his suppressants and needing to understand the place where Will and his Omega met, where they diverged. If he was more than his need, more than Omega. An experiment.

Will never left. Now they are as this. Connected. Combined. Two halves of some whole and Will has never felt more himself than when he is here, with Hannibal.

Holding tight to Hannibal’s short, instructive notes.

#

If Hannibal knows anything, it’s lighting. And so the light in the study is low, golden. Flattering and kind. Hannibal rests in his chair, a book open in his hands but he’s not reading. Instead his gaze is soft, elsewhere. Sometimes, depending on the day, the mood, the request, Will enters this room and kneels at his feet, between his legs, head to his thigh as Hannibal strokes his hair, neither of them speaking. Both of them content as cats. This is not that day. When Will enters he leans into the doorframe.

Hannibal notices because Hannibal always notices. “Sit, if you like.”

Does he? So far he’s almost shot Anthony, had a fairly welcome orgasm, fought with Anthony and whatever pleasant tipsy whiskey mood he was in? It’s long, long gone. Hannibal requested his presence, which always means one of three things - Hannibal wants to speak with him, fuck him, or look at him.

Will isn’t sure which is which but because Hannibal said Sit, he suspects they’re about to have a conversation.

“You may choose the chair, or with me, either is acceptable.”

And sometimes, sometimes the way Hannibal puts down small laws, guidelines, options that don’t feel like options, drives him crazy. But just now. Just now, because it’s been a fucking long day, he wants to be told. “Please tell me.”

Hannibal points to the floor.

And so that’s where Will goes, in the space Hannibal makes for him, with his head to Hannibal’s thigh and Hannibal, as expected, rests a hand on Will’s hair.

“My intent was to be here for you.”

That Will knows. “He does look an awful lot like me.”

Hannibal laughs. “He is nothing like you.”

“I just shit all over him like an insolent, jealous child.”

“He’ll recover. A fragile ego is not one of his faults.”

“It might be mine.”

Hannibal tugs Will’s hair hard enough tears spring to his eyes. Will grumbles. Mumbles something without words.

“Either way, Anthony and I are not teenagers and would should have —”

Will could come up with a hundred things they should have done, but all he says is —“Kept it in your pants?”

Hannibal taps Will’s cheek, a small warning Will doesn’t take seriously, not when it’s followed by the brush of fingers along the line of his jaw. “Or perhaps just put the linens away and tidied the kitchen.”

Will shifts. Fiddles with the seam of his jeans, an errant thread, the place where the denim is thin.

“I’m sure he’s shining the taps now.” It’s not a euphemism. In the years they’ve been together,  Anthony has become part of this, their dynamic, even though they go months without seeing him. Somehow Anthony is a bridge, is glue. Somehow he fills in the gaps, takes care of the places they can’t with each other, both because of who they are and because of what they want. Because of what feels right and good between them.

“Or trying,” Hannibal laughs because no one has ever wiped down the kitchen to his precise standards. Sometimes Will. Sometimes he leaves fingerprints on the refrigerator just because he can.

“Tell me,” Will says, curling his hand around Hannibal’s ankle. “Why Jack called.”

“Feathers stained a deep turquoise, their shafts blooded.”

Will takes in a thoughtful breath. “Toledo?” Ohio. The Bluebird massacre. Nine bodies. “Bluebird of happiness, hope. Not the story I’d tell if I’d just killed nine people.”

“When we read a book, it’s left to right. If we read this one right to left, what words jump out?”

Will considers the question. “Hope.” He pauses. “If the feathers were dyed, then it’s a wish. Trim a bird’s feathers and they can’t fly. The killer wanted to ground the victims. Hope is freedom, not chains.”

“And yet you sit at my feet.”

“Because I want to, not because you’ve tied me to your chair.”

“Perhaps the killer gave the feathers to the body—”

“Flight as metaphor? The soul flies up to heaven?” Will pauses. “You’re not interviewing the suspect are you?”

Hannibal shakes his head. “No, not today.”

A victim then, or the one that got away, or the one that saw too much or the the one who can’t _unsee_ and Will. Maybe there are other reasons Jack did not ask for him.

“When do you need to leave?” A question asked without looking at Hannibal.

“I would have never asked Anthony to take care of you if I did not find him trustworthy.”

 _Take care of him. Because of course Hannibal will take care of him._ “I trust him.”

“But not yourself?”

“Whatever else, Anthony’s still Alpha,” Will says, turning his head. Hannibal traces the torn, rough edges of the mark he made earlier. “And I’m still an Omega—” he doesn’t have to say what they both know.

“An Alpha who knows precisely his place in this house. If he wants to remain in my favour, he follows my rules.”

“What about me?”

“I’d say the same is true for you,” with a glide of thumb along Will’s eyebrow. “There is something, however, a purchase I made in case we ran into this exact situation. I must admit, I was not thinking it would come in so handy so soon.”

“Do they make Real Dolls in prickly Lithuanian?” Of course, all Real Dolls are bottoms.

“A what now?” There’s that wrinkle between his perfect, ice-grey eyes.

“Nothing,” Will answers. “What did you buy?”

“Sit up,” Hannibal says, and so Will does, shifting to face him.

Hannibal hands him a box. Will hadn’t it noticed it, there on the table beside Hannibal’s chair. “It’s from the Almega Institute.”

Almega? Part of the University, a division dedicated to the study of Alpha/Omega behaviour. Will turns the box over in his hands. Black, with silver writing. “Its monogrammed?”

“Labelled.”

“What is it?”

“I suggest you open it. ”

Down here, on the floor, he’s too small. This exchange too clinical. It was like this once between them, in the first seventy-two hours of their acquaintance, when Will came to Hannibal for help, for comfort. When Will came to understand that he was not two halves of a whole, not driven by some primal, biological need. So much of this moment reminds him of that first day, standing in Hannibal’s home.

_"My whole life has been a control group, a series of rules and guidelines implemented either by pharmaceutical or societal expectation."_

_"And you wish to abandon both?"_

He had, which is why he had come to Hannibal. Uncertainty is why he came to Hannibal. Love is why he stayed. So there is this. Will stands and takes the box to the window, oddly disappointed the gift doesn’t have a bow. The drapes are open and the palest slip of moonlight slides between the panels, leaving silver stars on the floor.

Inside the proper box, marked with Hannibal’s proper initials, are memories.

_Turns out you can buy other things on the internet besides pheromone blockers and mattresses and although his purchase was slightly smaller than he would have preferred, marbled and blue and flared at the base, when he moves he finds it's not entirely unpleasant. It fills him in one way, ensuring he's not inclined to desperately seek out another._

“A butt plug?” Except it’s not. Even as it is. Cock shaped, which makes it unusual, shorter than the toys Hannibal prefers and yet. And yet there’s something unexpected about it.

“I suppose, were one to use colloquial, crass language, one might term it such.”

Of course Will has no issue with crass language or butt plugs, because if Will has anything, it's a penetration kink, and Hannibal knows this and of course this is his Alpha seeing a problem and finding a solution. Will’s heat. Hannibal’s solution. Once, Hannibal had whispered to him, _“Will if you have a problem, I can solve it,”_

And Will had replied: ‘ _Then you can_ c _heck out the hook while my dj revolves it’_ , but Hannibal. Turned out Hannibal was unfamiliar with eighties rap, but Hannibal was familiar with _hook_ , and so an entry went into the Black Notebook.

“So if it’s not a butt plug, would you call it it?”

“There is an historic record for such an object—”

The floorboards creak. Will shoots a glance over his shoulder. Reddens instantly. Looks at the floor. The window. Studies the exceptional build of his skinny feet. Maybe Hannibal’s right and he could use a pedicure.

“However,” Hannibal continues—

“Is this where you tell him it dates back to the Renaissance,” Anthony offers from his place at the door. “Or there is always that story of the robbers in Holland, those pesky vagrants hiding out behind all of those cows, who used its key to keep their victims quiet while they pilfered the gouda?”

What Hannibal and Will offer in return is the same blank expression.

“I have it on good authority that the stick does not go all the way up either of your asses,” Anthony laughs, “but I’m suddenly fighting a sudden need to make sure.”

Will glances at Hannibal. “It doesn’t by chance come with a ball gag?”

“Drool makes the Doctor uncomfortable,” Anthony says with a touch of his finger to his lip.

But of course that’s not true. There is still the matter of the gift, silicone from the feel, weight. Will tucks his fingers beneath it and suddenly. Suddenly he clues in. It feels like Hannibal. A familiar size and a familiar weight and, “it’s—”

“Custom,” Hannibal says.

An unexpected shiver goes up Will’s spine. Anthony clears his throat. From somewhere in the house comes a low chime, the echo of a bell.

Clock. Soon Hannibal will be gone, and as the moon continues her arc across the sky, Will’s beast will awaken. Beast. Melodrama is nauseating, even when its his own.

“Test drive?” Anthony pushes away from the doorframe.

“I know what a—” somehow he can’t quite get the words DildoButtPlug out.

“Maybe he does need that history lesson,” Anthony says.

Hannibal opens his palm. Will shifts to hand him the toy but instead Hannibal says, “the box.”

So there’s the box. Hannibal lifts a second compartment, withdraws—

“A Fitbit?” If Will moves quickly, he can deke around Anthony and make it through the door, down the hall.

“Should we upload the charts, his heart rate?” Anthony reaches, drags the back of his hand over the line of Hannibal’s cheek. “I’d planned on providing you with a porno, not pivot tables.”

Hannibal’s smile only shows teeth. Will takes an immediate step backward, but Hannibal doesn’t come for him. Instead the man grabs Anthony by the wrist, twisting and lifting his arm. Anthony grunts as the band is wrapped around bone, the lean muscle of his forearm.

“Here,” Hannibal says, tapping a small black disc almost indistinguishable from the rest of the strap. Will squints, vaguely curious even has he couts how many steps it is to the door. The toy is still in his hand and then there’s Hannibal and the vague feeling that the toy is changing. Breathing.

Expanding. Anthony winks at Hannibal, who finally releases the man’s arm. Will knows the firm of Hannibal’s grip and tomorrow, tomorrow there will be bruises. Intentional reminders. Hannibal doesn’t have to be in the room to fill it.

The man rubs away Hannibal’s touch. The base of the toy fills. Will’s very familiar with how long it takes Hannibal to knot, familiar with how it feels and his heat is two, three hours away but there is this: the telltale prickle beneath his skin, the swelling of his body.

Anthony steps in behind him, wrapping an arm around Will’s waist. Loam and moss. The dark of in impassible forest. Anthony is still Alpha and Will. And Will closes his eyes, his thumb idly stroking the toy in his hand.

Hannibal goes on as if lectring them both. “There is discussion in Omega research circles that ordinary knotting aids don’t provide the same level of surprise or comfort because the knot is pre-built and lacks the natural progression of an Alpha breeding an Omega. If Anthony triggers the expansion of the knot, even by your request, your body is likely to respond as if I am the one inside you.”

Because of course this thing is custom made. The girth and somehow the weight of Hannibal’s cock, even though it’s not as long and the colour is wrong and a blush crawls over Will’s chest and up his neck.

Anthony nuzzles into Will, into the space behind his ear, not far from the place Hannibal so likes to show his teeth. “Shall we test drive?”

The blush travels all the way to Will’s cheeks. “Right now?”

Hannibal glances between them. “It would be preferred, yes. Before I leave for the hospital.”

“Hannibal, I—”

“I would be more comfortable if I knew the device would not cause you any discomfort.”

There is the press of Anthony’s hand in the small of his back. “Seems like Daddy made a request.”

Daddy. Will clears his throat. Anthony’s not his Alpha and when they’re alone the dynamic is not this, but when Anthony says Daddy. When did he become this man, willing and wanting? But of course, of course he does as Hannibal asks. When his jeans hit the floor, he kicks them away. Gets his thumbs in the band of his boxers and pushes them down. He kicks at them, too, but they land short of his pants.

“It may beneficial if Anthony stays for this, Will.”

Beneficial. “For whom?” He looks at the floor, at the hem of his shirt. At least until Hannibal stands and taps his chin, demanding he look up.

“I can certainly make myself comfortable elsewhere in the house.”

Will looks at Hannibal. Hannibal snaps his fingers and points at the floor. It’s not Will’s signal, not his command, so he stays standing.

Anthony, however, comes to where they are. Kneels. Not for Hannibal, but for Will. “He can stay there if you like, or you may order him elsewhere.”

Which of course Will would, could, because that is also part of their agreement. There is also a part of Will that wants to argue, that bristles at being exposed, that bristles at the way Anthony looks at him, amused and aroused and so interested in what might happen next.

There is also this: Hannibal’s orchestrations, the way the board is set and he arranges the pieces. Will’s cock twitches. Anthony smiles.

“Okay. Okay.”

“Tell him what you want.”

Will is pretty sure Anthony can figure it out. Anthony figuring it out won’t please Hannibal. “Touch me.”

Anthony starts with his hand, a careful lift of Will’s cock, still soft. He drags his thumb over the head and then licks, following his touch. He traces the underside, the edge of Will’s cockhead before cradling it with the flat of his tongue, before sucking softy. Will touches the side of Anthony’s head and closes his eyes. It’s not the first time Anthony’s taken him in his mouth and it’s not the first time Hannibal’s watched.

Will curls his fingers beneath Anthony’s ear. His hair’s longer than Will’s, greyer on the edges. Anthony smiles and lifts his hand, touching Will’s thigh as he pulls back, settling himself on his heels. “You are beautiful, Graham.”

It’s true, about Anthony’s ego. “I was an asshole.”

“Adrenaline, darling. Fear makes fools of us all.”

“Gentlemen, if you please.”

Again, Anthony draws the head of Will’s cock into his mouth, drags his tongue along the shaft. Wet and warmth and not like Hannibal at all, who is eager in his way, but not playful and the sparkle in Anthony’s eyes never looks like the edge of a blade, a silvered glint to slice him open. Will closes his eyes, swallows down the lump in his throat, salted desire. There’s no urgency in following Hannibal’s instruction. The unexpected flick of Anthony’s tongue along his slit is fireworks and his his hips stutter and buck.

Hannibal slips his fingers between Will’s cheeks.

“Ready yourself for me,” Hannibal whispers into Will’s hair, and just like that, his body warms, responds. Glands swell and slick builds, and even here in the moment before his heat comes on  it’s not mindless, not madness. Even with two Alphas he’s in control.

“Good, Will.” Hannibal says, running the pad of his thumb over Will’s hole. “Very good. ”

Will is no stranger to being penetrated, kept open and filled and he came to Hannibal and told Hannibal that being filled satiated him, took the edge off. Made being in heat easier. That first night. That first heat in this house, how many times did he come, fucking himself on Hannibal’s toys because he was too afraid to go to Hannibal. Too afraid of handing over his power and too afraid of what it might mean if he did.

_Sometime later the pain is almost unbearable. Will shoves a hand between his legs and coats his fingers with slick. He grips the base of the toy and brutally fucks himself until he is panting, crying. He comes in a sudden surge, a low wail and the urge to go to Hannibal, to the Alpha, is so strong he tears into the palm of his free hand with his teeth until he tastes blood._

_When he finally settles, he makes a note in the yellow notebook and falls asleep, his blood a brutal stain on Hannibal’s sheets._

Now when the thinks about Hannibal, when he considers their life together?

He calls him Husband.

That is not the word that comes out of his mouth when Hannibal slips a finger inside him, crooked and seeking. A moan instead, low and deep enough that his body arcs, pushing his heavy cock deeper into Anthony’s mouth. The other Alpha responds with a groan and circles Will’s thickened shaft with his hand, stroking down to the base.

Slick slips from Will’s body. He curls his imperfect feet and twists, licking at his bottom lip. The refractory period for an Omega just before, and while in heat, is well documented and although Will is not fourteen, a familiar warmth curls in his belly. “Jesus, fuck.”

“Language,” Hannibal says.

Anthony laughs over the head of Will’s cock and then draws Will deeper into his throat.

“Sorry,” Will chokes out.

“Hold still,” Hannibal says.

Will doesn’t need much prep because Will is always ready, wanting, because biology and gender and also love. Also need. So Will holds still, and slowly Hannibal fills him. Response is immediate, a flush. An urgent shifting of bones under skin, of muscle and other soft tissues.

“Hannibal,” a mumble, a whisper. Somehow this is his Alpha’s cock. Somehow. Will knows, knows it’s silicone and metal and wire but the Omega under his skin doesn’t know anything of any of that, it only knows the feel of Hannibal.

“Well, now,” Anthony sighs, brushing Will’s cock with the line of his jaw.

The prick of stubble dragging over skin and Will. Will curls his hand around Anthony’s neck, pressing fingers into the muscle, the meat of his neck and squeezes until there’s choking, the begging for air.

Something in Will rolls over, stands up and shows its teeth.

Hannibal leans into Will’s body. “Do not break him, my love.” A gentle stroke of Will’s arm, a coaxing request.

Will flexes his fingers, opens his hand. Anthony drops his forehead to Will’s thigh.

Hannibal leans in, kissing Will’s hair as he turns the toy. Will clenches, holding it tight. In.

“Tell me when you’re close.”

“Close was five minutes ago.”

“Anthony, bring your hand to Will’s hip.”

“Come when you need to,” Hannibal murmurs, covering Anthony’s wrist with his own hand. And Will. And Will. Slick slips down his thighs as his cock throbs, Anthony laps at the head, drinking down what’s there of pre-come, salted wet and then Will’s body stutters and he thrusts once, fucking Anthony’s mouth.

“Now,” he says and then lets out a low, needing groan and just as he comes Hannibal grips Anthony’s wrist.

Will’s scream, the last breath of a dying animal, tears his throat apart.

The toy changes. Expands.

Knots him.

Fills him and he gasps, bucks and falls forward, his hands to Anthony’s shoulders, cock deep in Anthony’s throat as he comes and comes and comes, spasming in a violent seizure that blackens the world. That rolls him over and under.

This is the ocean, rushing to meet him.

Anthony drops to the floor,landing hard on his ass. “The fuck did you do him?”

But Hannibal’s hands are around Will, drawing him in and back into his body.

“I may be dead,” Will says, and still there’s the feeling of knot, of being knotted and, “I need to be not upright.”

Then he wasn’t. Somehow he was lifted to the chair, to Hannibal’s lap and the comfort of a blue wool blanket. Anthony on the floor wearing a smile bright as Christmas morning, wet on the front of his shirt, come or sweat or spit.

“You may have just been replaced,” Anthony winks at Hannibal, wiping milk wet from his chin.

Will lets out a low whine and nuzzles into his Alpha’s chest, into the soft of his skin, musk and pheromone. His nakedness, this exposure, barely registers. There was a time before, back then. Back when. A time before Hannibal when he put up walls and the walls were overgrown with ivy, but now. But now.

Now there are only windows.

“The object is meant to simulate the moment at which the Alpha knots the Omega, working in a way toys with built-in knots, well, do not. The assumption is, that as the knot works on the expansion model and is build to mimic the size and feel of the Alpha, it triggers the same hormone release as when an Alpha knots the Omega.”

“And then?” The world is still made of stars and yet Will is forming sentences. For a second he wonders if he’s imagining the whole of this conversation.

“And then it contracts to its normal size in accordance with the typical refractory period of the original Alpha.”

Which means they have about somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour.

The Omega shifts. Claws.

Will turns his head. Teeth on skin and Hannibal.

Hannibal lengthens his neck, lifts his chin and Will nudges Hannibal with his nose and while he could bite, kisses him instead.

  
  
  



End file.
